Bruce Levine a clinical psychologist in his latest book Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy asked a question that has been on Hag’s and my mind a lot lately, Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not “set them free” but instead further demoralize them?

The M$M and Internet are full each day of examples of craziness in many areas of American life, especially government and politics that I either didn’t know existed or has been recently exposed due to massive American depression and a crescendo of crisis brought on by multiple disastrous political decisions and broken systems.

I have not read Levine’s book since I only became aware of it yesterday by reading his post in CounterPunch, Are Americans Too Broken for the Truth to Set Us Free? I found the article because I spend eight or more hours every day perusing hundreds of articles/posts putting together a Daily News email I send to over 300 fellow Dems in my Chicago area suburbs and friends around the country. I initiated it so that our very busy and dedicated Dem political candidates will know what truths and falsehoods are being published. My News contains 150-200 Internet links on articles/posts covering town, city, county, state, national and international politics.

I can find the time to do this because I am retired and through my 28 years in military public affairs and a subsequent career in social service in inner-city Chicago, I have developed skills that can be put to productive use. These skills and amazing experiences also help me serve on county committees and canvass my neighborhood as a precinct committeeman.

Far too many Americans have as Levine implies in the question opening his CounterPunch article, become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not “set them free” but instead further demoralize them.

People far smarter and better informed than I, have provided multiple reasons for this rampant mental illness. According to reviewers of Levine’s book he: offers timely insights about the social and cultural causes of demoralization…in this, the Dark Age of the pharmaceutical-military-industrial complex, Levine has given a much needed wake-up call that challenges each of us to find our own antidote, in the healing aspects of integrity, nature, self-transcendence, and community; this well-conceived and researched book illuminates the general malaise tinting the canvas of our lives and validates the background of unhappiness inherent in our contemporary lifestyles—a background often mislabeled as pathological and an epidemic we are all trying to survive; this well-written and insightful book locates depression where it should be situated—in the dehumanization of American culture and the corporatization of psychological health and well-being.

Coming from Levine’s fellow psychologists and psychiatrists, that’s really scary evaluations of American voter minds today. Levine cites as proof of this illness the fact that 47 million Americans are without health insurance, job losses are horrendous, polls show the majority of Americans are opposed to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the taxpayer bailout of the financial industry, yet there is no outpouring of millions of citizens on the streets of Washington protesting these betrayals. He says these Americans are like any abused victim who allow abusers to, “shove lies, emotional and physical abuses, and injustices in their victims’ faces, and when victims are afraid to exit from these relationships, they get weaker; and so the abuser then makes their victims eat even more lies, abuses, and injustices, resulting in victims even weaker as they remain in these relationships.”

Like any effective psychologist, Levine offers a solution. “When people get caught up in humiliating abuse syndromes, more truths about their oppressive humiliations don’t set them free. What sets them free is morale. What gives people morale? Encouragement. Small victories. Models of courageous behaviors. And anything that helps them break out of the vicious cycle of pain, shut down, immobilization, shame over immobilization, more pain, and more shut down.”

For my own county DuPage, I have joined thousands of Dems who are fed up with long-term Repug rule and we are well on the way of turning a once very red county blue. Friday night Democratic Governor Quinn who spoke at our Holiday fundraiser recognized the rapid political change that has happened in a county his father lived in for half a century. At our 07 fundraiser I attended just after joining the effort, only 72 people attended with no state officials joining us. Friday night we had almost 300 there and the room was full of state candidates.

As I reflected on the great evening on my drive home, I told myself the wonderful people I have met who have open minds and think like I do is what has kept my positive attitude alive while daily reading the depressing horror stories of just how broken our country is. A country which is now almost totally owned by imperial, corporate titans who are bent on destroying our middle class and dominating all politics and thinking.

I have also become part of an amazing group of Internet friends, that includes Hag, who met through Greenwald’s UT blog who have provided an abundance of insight and truth and also kept me from sinking into the depths of depression.

Levine is absolutely right. My morale is high because instead of bitching at the TV, I took my wife’s advice and got off my ass and did something productive or else I would have had to “just shut up!”

Take a look at our county website and the people that keep buoying me up. If you can find the time, I highly recommend getting involved and enjoying small victories that in time can lead to larger victories. Victories that may well mean in time we have to take to the streets by the millions.

Dems and liberals who are not suffering from depression are not achieving larger victories even though they are working very hard because of diffusion of effort. The number of emails I receive daily from wonderful organizations who are pursuing a single issue is amazing. Our corporate abusers like it that way. As long as we don’t come together on an overriding issue, we are almost powerless and can’t get millions on Washington’s streets.

I spoke with a fellow township officer Friday night who recognized this problem. She has been very active in promoting green awareness and our township goals. She said, I have to change my course and put my efforts into doing something about our political system that allows money to control our government. “If we don’t attack our broken systems, how can we expect to really get something meaningful done?”